Spice Boxes

Spice Box 1

Start from chilies and go clockwise

1) chilies

2) Fenugreek

3) Turmeric

4) Black Masala (Goda Masala)

5) Chili Powder

6) Asafoetida Powder

7) Mustard Seeds (in the center)

Spice Box 2

Start with Cinnamon and go clockwise

1) Cinnamon

2) Shahajeera (Black Cumin)

3) Ilaichi

4) Cloves

5) Star Anise (Chakriphool)

6) Bay Leaves

7) Black Peppercorns (in the center)

Raw Masala

Ingredients: 

Coriander seeds - 1/2 cup
Cumin seeds - 1/4 cup
Shahajeera (black cumin seeds) - 2 tsp

Cloves - 10-15

Cinnamon - 2" pieces - 4-5

Peppercorn - 10-15

Recipe:

Dry roast all the spices one by one on a medium flame so that they become crisp.
Keep stirring so they don't splatter.
Transfer them to a plate and let cool a little.
Grind them in a mixer/blender and store the masala in a tight lid glass jar.

Notes:

1) Be careful while roasting cloves and peppercorns as they can splatter and jump from the pan and cause burns.

2) Store all your spices and masalas in tight lid glass jars in a freezer. This way they don't go rancid and last a very long time.

3) I have 2 masala containers in my kitchen close to my stove. I just take out a little bit of all these 

spices in these containers and save the rest in the freezer.

Basic Garam Masala

Ingredients: 

Coriander seeds - 1/4 cup
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
Shahajeera (black cumin seeds) - 2 tsp

Cloves - 10-15

Cinnamon - 2" pieces - 6

Peppercorn - 10-15
Masala Ilaichi (badi Ilaichi) - 5-6
Black mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Fenugreek - 1 tsp
Bay leaves - 6-7
Nagkeshar - 1 tsp (optional)
Dagadphool - 2-3 (optional)
Oil to fry

Recipe:

Add 1/2 tsp oil to a nonstick pan. Roast cloves, fenugreek and black peppercorns on a medium flame
so that they become crisp. Keep stirring so they don't splatter.
Transfer them to a plate.
Then roast remaining items one by one in the same pan (don't add more oil) so you can grind them in a mixer/blender and store the masala in a tight lid glass jar.

Notes:

1) Be careful while roasting cloves and peppercorns as they can splatter and jump from the pan and cause burns.
2) Store all your spices and masalas in tight lid glass jars in a freezer. This way they don't go rancid and last a very long time.
3) I have 2 masala containers in my kitchen close to my stove. I just take out a little bit of all these spices in these containers and save the rest in the freezer.

Moong Beans

Ingredients:

Moong beans - 1 cup
oil tempering - peanut oil, black mustard seeds, turmeric (no hing)
Onion - 1 medium chopped fine
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 Tb
Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Chili powder - to your taste
Kokum ( Garcinia Mangostana L) - 2 pieces (optional for sourness)
If you don't have kokum add 1/4 tsp tamarind paste or squeeze 1/2 lemon while serving (optional)
chopped cilantro leaves - 2-3 tsps
freshly grated coconut - 3-4 Tb (optional)
Gud or brown sugar - 1 Tb
salt to taste.

Recipe:

Remove stones from the beans. Soak beans for at least 2-3 hours. Remove water and tie them in a thin cloth and keep them in a dark place to sprout. (I keep them in my oven).  Check the beans every day. If you don't have time to sprout them cook soaked beans in the pressure cooker.

If you don't have time for soaking the beans, add 1tsp peanut oil in a pan and roast them on the stove on low flame until lightly brown or you smell the aroma of beans. Then wash the beans, add water and cook them in pressure cooker.

Heat pan and add 2 tsp peanut oil.  Prepare oil tempering and add chopped onion and let it cook until
lightly brown. Add cooked moong beans.
Add ginger garlic paste.
Add brown sugar or gud, coriander and cumin powders.
Add chili powder to your taste.
Add kokum or tamarind paste and salt to taste.
Add 1/2 cup water if necessary and cook for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle with cilantro and coconut.
Serve as a side dish with Indian bread, or rice

Notes:

1) I usually cook beans with garlic for evening meals.
2) You can use black eyed peas, lentils, green/white peas, green/red/black chana (garbanzo beans) instead of moong beans.
3) If you don't have time to soak beans like lentil, black eyed peas - dry roast them in a pan on top of stove before cooking.
4) You can sprout almost all the beans before cooking.
5) If I am going to serve them with Indian bread (chapati, roti, naan etc), I cook the beans until most of the water is evaporated. If I am going to serve it with rice I keep more water in them.
6) Add 1 Tb onion-garlic masala instead of ginger garlic paste.

Lentil beans

Ingredients:

Lentils beans - 1 cup
oil tempering - peanut oil, black mustard seeds, turmeric, hing powder (or 4 large cloves garlic cut into thin slices lengthwise)
black masala - 1 Tb
chili powder - to your taste
kokum ( Garcinia Mangostana L) - 2 pieces (optional for sourness)
If you don't have kokum add 1/4 tsp tamarind paste or squeeze 1/2 lemon while serving (optional)
chopped cilantro leaves - 2-3 tsps
freshly grated coconut - 3-4 Tb
gud or brown sugar - 1 Tb
salt to taste.

Recipe:

Remove stones from the beans. Soak beans for at least 2-3 hours. Cook the beans in pressure cooker.

If you don't have time for soaking the beans, dry roast them in a pan on the stove on low flame until
lightly brown or you smell the aroma of beans. Then wash the beans, add water and cook them in pressure cooker. 

Heat pan and add 2 tsp peanut oil.
Prepare oil tempering and add cooked beans.
Add brown sugar or gud, black masala.
Add chili powder to your taste.
Add kokum or tamarind paste and salt to taste.
Add 1/2 cup water if necessary and cook for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle with cilantro and coconut.
Serve as a side dish with Indian bread, or rice.

Notes:

1) I usually cook beans with garlic for evening meals.
2) You can use moong beans, black eyed peas instead of lentils
3) If you want to use moong beans roast them in a little bit of peanut oil before cooking or soak them for 3-4 hours and then remove water and tie them in thin cloth and keep them in a dark place to sprout. Check every day. Once sprouted use them right away or refrigerate.
4) If I am going to serve them with Indian bread ( chapati, roti, naan etc), I cook the beans until most of the water is evaporated. If I am going to serve it with rice I keep more water in them.
5) Add 1/2 Tb cumin powder for a little different taste.

Asafoetida

Ingredients:

Compound Hing (asafoetida).
You can also buy hing powder already prepared to save time.

Recipe:

1) Heat a pan on medium heat. Add compound hing to the pan. Keep turning until you see white spots on the surface. Hing will also swell in size. Let it cool. Transfer it to a mortar and pound it with a pestle to make into powder.

2) Place the compound hing in a glass bowl. Heat it in the microwave oven for 30 seconds on 50% power. Repeat until the compound swells and almost doubles in size. Pound it to make smaller pieces and then into fine powder using spice blender ( I use coffee grinder).
Store in a glass jar with a tight lid.

Note:

Powder made from the compound hing is very pungent so you will need only (1/3) one third  the amount of the store bought powder.

Read this article for more information on this super spice.

Vaidyanathan Pushpagiri / 6 yrs ago / 

  22

 

                                                                                                                          http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2674/4082645318_980d458b0a_o.jpg                   (L)

Dr. K.T. Acharya in his book, “A historical dictionary of Indian food” and “Indian food – a historical companion” refers to a food item which has been imported into India from ancient times.  It was known as a food item, in the Vedic times and the epic Mahabharatha describes meat cooked at a party, with black pepper, rock salt, pomegranates, lemon and this import, Hing.

This spice, is a resinous gum, which has a strong flavour. It is exuded from the roots of three kinds of plants belonging to the family of Ferula - a close relative of the carrot and fennel plant.  It boasts two varieties - the water soluble and the oil soluble.  

Another worthy, Dr. Chip Rossetti, calls this resin as "smelliest spice of the world".  When the farmers remove the soil from around the plant and make an incision in the top thick carrot like root, for about three months, it exudes the resin which coagulates on exposure to atmospheric air and gradually turns brown.  

Asafoetida, the European (coined by the Italians) name for this resin is a combination of  - "Asa”  from Persian meaning “resin”, and "foetida” meaning “stinking” in Latin.  It is a stinking resin because its major component is 2-butyl 1-propenyl disulphide, which can  easily  be replicated in the school / college laboratories by using the Kipp's Apparatus.    It has a more colourful name, which mercifully is not in use any more.  Devil’s Dung - both for its shape and smell !!

In India, we call asafoetida, as Hing [In Farsi it is called Angozad. The “Ang” from Farsi became Hing in Hindi] or Perungaayam(Tamil) or Kaayam (in Malayalam) meaning the big lump and is not a native of India.  It is imported as Ferula Asafoetida, from Afghanistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and central Asia. 

It is used in our daily cooking, as well as in medicines.  As a medicine its most common use is in treating indigestion and flatulence.  It relieves locked gas from the intestines and allows it to gush southwards as Kizh Vayu.  One reason, the Indian housewife includes this spice to almost all her cooking, as well as add it in making her masalas. 

The family of lentils, has a tendency to produce gas, in humans who eat them, and hence our forefathers have found a way to naturaly neutralise this upavadham in our stomachs.  To a great extent, garlic is also used for the same purpose, other than adding their fragrance to cooking. But most people do not know, that one should never add Garlic and Hing together in cooking.  Because one neutralises the effect of the other, and the very purpose of adding these spices to our cooking is lost irretrievably or forever.   

Ayurveda Materia Medica says it is good for goiter (iodine metabolism), bronchitis (anti-infective), baldness (hair follicle stimulant)  and even to bring on the recalcitrant monthly menstruation in females, sort of a female hormone moderator?

Very recently, a farmer in Kodumudi  Tamilnadu Mr. Chellamuthu, had used this Perungaayam  in it raw form as an insecticide by putting a bag of  asafoetida in his irrigation channel in the field, killing caterpillars, thus helping  many vegetables to grow better and infection free.  Plants flower better and turmeric flourish because the planted area is free of insects.  

According to the biochemists  “this resin, has a component, that inhibit the growth of insects in the field.  This component Ferulic Acid acts as an antifungal, but is also known to disturb plant nutrient balance, and inhibit the effect of plant hormones. There must then be a balance of these effects that benefit the plant". 

In our daily cooking we do not use this resin in its virgin state.  We adulterate it with atta and an edible gum used as a bonding agent, like gum Arabic in the ratio of 60:30:10.

A hundred grms. of the famous LG.Compounded Asafoetida contains 10 grms of this resin, 30 grms of  gum Arabic and 60 grms. of wheat powder. Hence it is a compounded item? 

We use minute lumps of Hing embedded in a small piece of ripe banana and swallow, as an immediate antidote for neutralising the poison of spiders and other home insects whose bite / sting give pain and an eruption.  

[Contains Hing (Asafoetida), Kali Mirch (Black Pepper) - gastro-intestinal stimulant, Zeera (Cumin) - antispasmodic Saunth (Ginger extract) - digestive and tonic, Nimbu Saar (Lemon extract) - digestive stimulant]  Rs. 15/- per bottle of 100 tabs.

"The natural way to relief from gas. Containing herbs and spices like hing, trusted and used for generations to stimulate digestion."

Ayurveda uses it as a Gas expeller, especially the OTC Medicine Dabur Hingoli, that saves  one from many an embarrassing situations.  Taken regularly, twice a day, it expels the accumulated obnoxious gas, while one is cleaning the teeth in the morning.  

A lot of churnas, and powders are available, with Hing as the major ingredient for almost all ailments concerning the stomach.Notes:

1)

Turmeric

My Mom has been using warm milk as a pre-bedtime sedative since I was a child. As much as I love chamomile, lavender, and all the usual tricks, they haven't always worked for me. I've always liked the whole "drink a glass of warm milk before bed" idea but adding turmeric to milk has won its way to my heart. Just add 1/4 tsp of turmeric along with a tsp of sugar to a warm cup of milk. It works it's magic when you get cold and cough. Take it at least 3 nights up to 7 nights for it to show it's effects. Most of the Ayurvedic medicines are taken in smaller quantities for a longer time, but not as long asthey stop being effective.

Turmeric, the beautiful orange spice from India, is from the ginger family. (Go figure, I love ginger.) Ayuverda and TCM boast that turmeric is anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and helps deal with internal and external infections. Doctors have more recently found that it might block enzymes that promote certain cancers. 

On a more traditional/spiritual plane, turmeric is said to increase ojas. Ojas loosely translates as "heartiness" or resilience, referring specifically to physical health. Ojas is one of the three key aspects of vitality in Ayurveda, along with tejas (the emotional level) and prana (the energetic level). Ojas is usually indicated by strong digestion and a healthy metabolism. Interestingly, I just learned that fertility is a very good sign of ojas because reproductive organs are nourished only after other tissues have been taken care of. 

Turmeric has so many benefits including help for arthritis, cancer, inflammation, skincare, haircare, etc. Please research it. If you have gallstones avoid it but you can take curcumin 
the constituent according to Dr. Weil.Sleep Well, Live Longer!

I believed that Turmeric is rich in anti-oxidants which helps in boosting the immunity power hence it is good for digestive, lungs, heart, bone etc. It acts as anti-bacterial in nature so it heals wound faster.